Lots of new and useful functionality is available with the latest Dynamics CRM offering from Microsoft, CRM 2015. The 2015 release comes closely on the heels of the major CRM 2013 release, with the two version release dates barely 6 months apart.
Quick Side Note: If you aren’t up to speed on all the new stuff that CRM 2013 offers, you’ll want to see that first, as CRM 2015 is based on CRM 2013. Far and away the biggest change is the redesigned User Interface (UI) which allows the user to navigate easily and with less ‘clicks’. In the CRM 2013 UI screenshot below you’ll there is also lot more related information visible on the screen.
The clean User Interface introduced in CRM 2013
The left hand Navigation pane has been replaced with the Navigation Bar across the top of the screen
To learn more about CRM 2013, .
I don’t want to suggest that this is a complete listing of new features for CRM 2015. That can be . Instead we want to highlight a couple of things that we feel will have a big impact or broad adoption across the CRM product line.
Marketing
Microsoft Social Listening is now available, whether your organization uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online or CRM 2015 (on-premises). If you haven’t looked into this yet, then you really should. Microsoft has made significant investments in various marketing aspects (InsideView, Marketing Pilot, etc.) and Social Listening is only the tip of a dynamic marketing ice berg.
Check the buzz on how much people are talking about your products or your company, and how the volume of posts is trending
Social Listening embeds within CRM
Sentiment analysis in Social Listening
Quick Find
You can search and access records in CRM 2015 much faster and easier. The improved search capabilities provide users with a quick way to search across multiple record types through the Web app. Now, just by entering keywords in the search box on the Navigation bar, you can quickly find and navigate to a record from anywhere within the Web app. Quick Find across multiple record types was available only on the CRM for tablets app for previous CRM version. The search box supports using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character.
Enter keyword(s) in the search box on the Navigation bar
To filter for matches of a certain type of record, you can select the record type from a drop-down list.
Hierarchical Views
New hierarchical visualizations and roll-ups bring real-time territory and forecasting data to your fingertips. Users now have a way to view accounts, products, and users that helps you see how info is related. CRM 2015 can display how data is related or grouped by accounts, products, or users in hierarchical charts. The user can pick a data set to get more details and navigate to the info you’re interested in.
Example of Account hierarchy
Business Processes
The Business processes available in CRM 2015 allow you automate a number of different activities in CRM. The example we’ll discuss here is the “branching ” feature that is follows different steps based on rules and conditions. That means that you can take a different “branch” (and handle a customer differently), based on things like the person’s budget, the type of products the person buys, when the person plans to buy your products, or other conditions.
For example, you are in process of qualifying a Lead and you learn that the customer plans to buy next month, which means that you’ll need to create a sales proposal and get certain approvals. The business process you’re following guides you through the tailored steps to handle the specific ‘branching’ conditions of the Lead prospect, with no guesswork.
You can find more information and detail about business processes here eBook: Customize a business process. This eBook is intended for administrators or managers.
If you are looking for more Tips & Tricks on Microsoft Dynamics CRM check out the educational blog .
by interDyn BMI
